Good to be home

So, we've mostly been chilling at the apartment here in Kreuzberg, Berlin. It's been great to be able to relax in something resembling a home. Kreuzberg is a cool area, though we've most often seen it from the balcony of Sherwin's apartment. So what we see is the apartments across the street. It seems that leaning out of windows is the local passtime. There's a particular family on the top floor across the street that often provides us with entertainment: having conversations from different windows or squeezing out of the same window, lowering fishing line down onto the street for no apparent reason... there's even a dog that comes and leans out, and a woman who comes and makes out with him. Seriously, she licks him back. Then she spits out the window. I haven't seen her hit anyone yet.

It hasn't all been chilling at home. We've been out a couple of times; we went to see a friend of Sherwin's and acqaintence of Nick's gig at White Trash Fast Food, a big resturant/bar/club. The American waitress there was offended by my tip; I guess she thought being a surly bitch and taking 40 minutes to bring us a plate of fries deserved more than 50 cents, so she swore at me and told me to never come back.
After that I tried to convince Nick, Sherwin and Christian that we should go into the goth club right next to White Trash, but they weren't into it, so we moved on to a bar that had been empty recently. Then a goth girl in a corset and little else walked past, so I told the guys I'd meet up with them.
I'm glad I went in there. The music was acceptable, and there was a stripper on the bar, who was a lot more sexy than anything I'd seen in Amsterdam. I had a dance, and a couple of the goths (who dance by stepping side to side and taking a drag on their cigarette every five seconds) complimented my fly skillz.
Later that night we met up with Katie and Hayden, who had just arrived. It was great to catch up, and it ended up being a pretty late night.
Another night we went and saw a gig: Junges Glueck (Young Luck). Terrible, but it was good to see a gig anyway. Sherwin and Nick kicked on to an electro club, but I called it a night. They had an awesome time and met some serious characters.

One thing we have been doing when we've been at home is playing this great German board game called Labrynth. People at the House: get it if you can, you'll love it.

Here's a photo of Nick and I playing it.

We're considering leaving on Friday for Krakow, where I would spend my 22nd birthday on Sunday. But who knows what might happen.

Massive Attack, DJ Sadow, TV On the Radio

It was awesome to go see a big concert, and this was indeed a big one. I'm terrible at estimating numbers of people, but I'd guess around 8000. The venue was cool; a warehouse by the river, with old shipping containers outside making a perimiter. It was also less than 15 minutes walk from the apartment, which was a huge bonus.
TV On the Radio started, and for the first two songs I was absolutely blown away, especially by the second song "The Wrong Way". They rocked the shit out of that. The rest of the show was weaker, but still good. Their frontman in good, and their guitarist looks incredible; he has a huge afro and a massive beard. He looked like some kind of rockin' teddy bear. I was disappointed they didn't play "Ambulance"... I've been a little obsessed with that song since Amsterdam.
DJ Shadow was next. He had a screen behind him that was always playing cool stuff, and the video was partially controlled by the music and the DJ, as well as being pre-sequenced. I found some parts of his set pretty boring, but I was having a dance sometimes. "Organ Doner" rocked. Nick and Shez didn't think much of the two tracks he did with a singer (Chris James... having two first names is lame), but I quite dug them.
Now, I've never really gotten into Massive Attack, but I was expecting to enjoy the show a lot. Unfortunately, I didn't. There were some awesome parts, but for the most part I found it repetitive and boring. And the lead dude's stupid dance pissed me off. When I was digging it, though, I was digging it a lot; especially in the rockin bits and ESPECIALLY "Teardrop".

Overall, a great night. Woot!

Back in Berlin

Apologies to my loyal audience, I was in Amsterdam for a week.
That place is like a debaucherous theme park. And the main public park there is amazing; a paradise for trippers. I fell in love there with a girl who looked like mother nature, and one day I'll see her again and talk to her. I'm positive that she plays the harp.

So, I'm back in Berlin (a very good thing for my bank account), and I'm pretty sure I've retained my sanity. Nick and I are crashing at Shez's (his room mate hasn't stayed there once, he's been at his girlfriend's every night). We're going to see Massive Attack w/DJ Shadow & TV On the Radio tomorrow night. The rent on Shez's room is $150 each for 5 weeks... considering moving to Berlin for a bit. That would be awesome.


Just heard from Katie Fry that she's in Warsaw with Hayden, and they're planning to come here soon, so we'll probably meet up with them.

It's all part of the adventure

As I'm sure you'll be able to read about in Nick's blog, a friend of his (Shez) happens to be living in Berlin at the moment, so last night we hung out with him. We went to meet him at his station, and after waiting 20 minutes we called his room mate. He could come to meet us because the landlord was showing him around their new digs, se he gave us directions. From there we went to meet Christian, who is from Bonn and has been living in Berlin a couple of weeks. We figured it would be good to have a (somewhat) local to show us around.
Christian is quite a character, very serious, and very funny because of it. We went to his place and had a beer and a smoke before we went searching for a bar. I asked him where we would go, and he suggested that we be spontaneous. Sure thing, there's a bunch of bars around Berlin.
So we're walking, passing a lot of bars, and we occasionally ask Christian where he's taking us, to which he invariably replies "Where ever you want to go."
"But, no, you suggest somewhere, you're the local. What's good?"
"There is lots of good places, it is all good."
"Well, this one looks alright."
"No, it's this way."

So we walked a couple of a kilometres down a street lined with bars, occasionally suggesting that we've walked a long way and maybe we should stop here, but somehow we just can't get Christian to stop, despite the fact that he claims to be taking us nowhere in particular. We finally reach the end of the long, bar-filled street, and Christian keeps walking. We ended up passing a club called Club 44, and there was a scary man in the doorway and a sign on the door indicating that the club was closed. We walked past that for a while, then finally stopped and asked Christian where he was taking us. It's turns out we were going to the club, be since it was closed we just kept walking.
Okay, that's it. We've walked a long way, and there's nothing here, we're going back to the bar filled street. We stopped at a couple of places along there and had a beer. By then it was getting pretty late and Christian had to go home, so he pointed us towards the train station with the claim that they run all night. We discovered that in fact they had stopped running, so we were forced to walk all the way across Berlin to Shez's appartment, stopping for a kabab and some beers on the way (80 cents for half a litre of beer at the kiosks). When we finally made it back to Shez's his key didn't fit the lock. We had a smoke and decided that Shez should walk with us back to our hostel, where there would certainly be a spare bed for him.
We followed the train line again, picking up more beers of the way of course. At one point a girl on a bike rode into a driveway in front of us. I thought "there must be something going on in there," but then she rode back out. I had just read The Alchemist, though, and I considered it an omen. I stopped to survey the area, then called out to the guys to tell them our plans have changed and we're going in here. We walked into an area that seemed to basically be disused, including a warehouse that housed piles of rubble, and a bunch of pretty cool graffiti. Then we came across a big sign that had the word "PARTY" written inside an arrow pointing to a building, which had a couple of windows illuminated with lights of red and purple. We saw a couple of girls dancing to what sounded like Nirvana in one room, so we decided to go knock on the door and try to join the party. After our knocks met with no response we were about to give up and leave, when a guy in a black hoodie, followed by two friends who looked pretty unsure about the whole thing, came up and just opened the door and walked in. So we walked in after him. Inside it looked like it might be an art school or something during the day. I said hi to hoodie guy's two friends and asked if they knew what this place was, or if any of them had any idea what they were doing here. The answer was no.
We looked around, and eventually two girls of about 40 came out of a room into the corridor we were in. They didn't look too shocked to see us, especially one who seemed like she might be on pills. She was very friendly. We got talking to her while her friend tried to drag her away into a bathroom. A guy came out and aided in the effort to silence with friendly girl, and eventually they dragged her into the bathroom. The guy stayed out in the corridor with us and said "You can talk to me, I am the toilet manager." He slowly walked us towards the door while we tried unsuccessfully to get information about what the place was and what they were doing. He wasn't as fun as the friendly girl, and clearly wanted us to leave, so we did.
We walked back to the hostel, and there were no spare beds, so Shez crashed on the floor.

Berlin

First off, I'm so excited, because today I bought a little guitar to travel around with. So I was walking around Berlin all day playing it. Hooray! No more whining about having nothing to play.

Berlin is SO FUCKING AWESOME. I want to move here. There's punks and goths and metal kids everywhere, and there's heaps of cool looking bars and clubs and shops.

So, Nick and I went to see the Stasi museum today, but accidentally ended up at a little Stasi exhibit. Still, we saw that, and the Brandenburg gate and the Holocaust memorial. We headed to the park from there and heard a massive beat coming from somwhere. When we found it, it was a closed off street running through the middle of the park with a bunch of little stages, most with DJs, but one with a rockabilly band. So that was cool.
Then we tried to head for the place we were told Nick might be able to get his camera fixed, but by the time we got there it was too late. There was a cool looking blown up church, though.
From there we headed for a place that was advertised on the train called Modern Graphics, which we figured was an exhibit, but turned out to be a comics shop. That was cool, though. We loked at some sick art, and I bought a graphic novel called 2020 Visions. It seems really cool, and I need something (in English) to read.
Oh, yeah, and we had a beer at the Molotow Cocktail. We basically sat there talking about how cool Berlin is and how much we want to live there.

Germany RULES

The train Nick and I caught this morning was awesome. So much better than any Italian train I've been on. Clean, comfortable, toilets that aren't just holes that you can see the tracks through, a smoking carriage. Generally kick-ass. Good old German engineering. And German efficiency; we had our tickets checked about five times in the six-hour trip to Berlin. There'll be no free rides here.
One other impressive example of efficient German engineering is an escalator we came across, which seemed broked but in fact only started moving when someone would approach it.

It turns out that the deposit on beverages containers isn't just a hostel thing: we went to a university party at a warehouse, and the same system existed there. 1.50 for a beer (cheap!), but you leave a 1 euro deposit as well. I lost mine, because I lost my token, but oh well, I drank my share of cheap beer.
It may have been a university party but it seemed like a high school party when a guy apporached me and said "There's a girl over here who thinks you're hot, come talk to her," or words to that effect. And so I was introduced to the third british Tanya that I've met so far on my travels. Hella cute too, and able to rugby-tackle me to the ground. In the end I left rather than dance to house music and deal with the fact that American Douchebag had showed up.

It was a pretty good time at the party, which was good because the day had been shit. We were going to go to the student area called Schwabing, but right after we set off it started raining. After spending some time back at the hostel reading and listening to music we ventured out, but didn't was to go as far as we'd planned (especially since figuring out the subway was nearly impossible for a English speaker. I'll give the Italian train system a point for that one, it was always a breeze there to get a ticket and figure out where you need to go). We went back to main street we'd been to and got beer and hung out. It was around 15.00 when the fucking APOCALYPSE started raining down on us. It was deliciously ominous leading up to that as well; the sky was dark grey, a wind picked up, a waitress broke a glass and all the people at the cafe suddenly left. Nick and I looked at each other, both sensing the terrible force that was brewing, but decided we were men enough to hack it. It was wonderful weather to listen to Dimmu Borgir to.

So, that concludes my chronologically backwards blog. Wow, it's just like that movie, Momento. I assume so, anyway. I haven't seen it. Steve, could you bring that home from Blockbuster when I get back?
Cheers, dude.

München

Nick and I walked around München all day. It's a pretty cool city, with beer available everywhere, and they seem to love lions. All along the main street for tourists and shopping there's statues of lions painted in odd, bright colours. One in particular was blue, had a third eye and clouds and stars all over it. What a tripper.
We went into that huge church in the background, but the Germans just don't put in the effort like the Italians do. Strikingly big, but stark and boring.

There's an enormous park called Englisher Park, which has a river running through it. On sunny days it's supposed to have topless sunbathers everywhere, but unfortunately the weather at the moment bears a striking resemblance to Melbourne around June. That combined with the trams is making me a little homesick.
In this park, also, is a gazebo that apparently operates as an "all night pharmacy". We're thinking of exploring more of the park today.
We went back to the main street in search of some kind of enormous german sausage, but couldn't find one that met our expectations. So disappointing.

Back at the hostel for happy hour, the bar was pretty lame. An American guy attatched himself to us after he failed to pick up some girls from Chicago. Biggest douchebag ever. He would constantly yak at us about something, then look back at the Chicago girls or blow smoke rings (poorly), ignoring whatever it was we had to say. And he wore a stupid hat, and stupid orange sunglasses. What a douche.
Turns out he's on the bunk below me. We ignored him at breakfast.

I got a RedBull this moring from reception at the hostel (Meininger Hostel, pronounced My Ninja). It cost 2.50, but I had to put down an additional .50 deposit, which would be returned to me if I gave back the empty can and the docket I got with it. When I asked why (actually, I said "That's weird") the reply came "It's the German way." Germany rules.

Munich

Well, we got here safe, and I managed to actually sleep on the train. We booked into our hostel at 7am and caught up on some more sleep. I was going to upload some pictures, but Nick has gone wandering and I forgot that he has my camera.

Munich looks cool, and remind me of Melbourne, with trams and everything.

If while in Germanz I have put Ys where there should be Zs, it's because thez have qwertz kezboards.

Caio.

No, wait...
Auf wiedersein.

Goodbye Italy

I'm in Venice until my train leaves for Munich at 22.50 (I love that they all use 24 hour clock here)

The boys and I went to the Vatican, but it was closed, so we went to St Peter's cathedral, which is a pretty cool building. When you walk in the size of it really hits you.
We went to the catacombs, but it was closed. So we broke in, but it turns out the bones reassemble themselves into skeletons to act as security guards, so we left pretty quickly.
Then, when we were waiting at the bus stop, one came in the wrong direction and Dhondy said that we should hop on, because it goes in a loop. Once we got on, we wondered why there would be a bus stop on the other side if it goes in a loop. The accompanying feeling of dread grew stonger as we got further and further into the countryside, and we finally (not soon enough) broke and got off. So there we were in the middle of nowhere, opposite a military facility, waiting at a shitty bus stop in the rain. There's a great photo.

When a bus came, it was the same driver who had helped us find the catacombs, so he must have thought we were complete idiots, but really's it's all Dhondy's fault, and he must be held entirely responsible. He cooked us yet another delicious meal to make up for it.

So, good times at Rome, then Adrian, Nick and I said goodbye to Dhondy and headed to Florence, because I could have Nick leave Italy without seeing it. We saw it, and had a good night. I managed to get hold of a guitar, but I'd rather I hadn't because by that time I was too drunk to play it, and that makes me angry.

Roma

...

We waited for our train, and I was particularly agitated... I think it may have been the fact that I've had no opportunity to play an instrument for a couple of weeks now. But it may have been a reaction to a subtle premonition of the night to come.
Our train was half an hour late, and was the oldest, crappiest one I've ridden on yet. No air-con, and with six to fill the cabin, it was pretty stuffy when the train wasn't moving. And boy, was it not moving. We spent, for no reason I could see, two and a half hours at La Spezia station. This was from about 1.30 to 4.00. The others managed to sleep a little in the cramped and hot cabin, but I had to sit on the platform smoking and listening to Italians complaining to each other about the wait. We finally got going, then spent another half an hour in the next station. In the end, our 6.10 arrival time at Roma Termini became 10.00. I think I managed about an hour of sleep. But hey, it's all part of the adventure.

We checked out backpacks at the station and went sight seeing; went into the Colosseum, and walked through a bunch of ruins. We came back to get our bags and headed to the campsite to check in.
We had intended to get two tents and just sneak Adrian and I in like we had before, but that plan went to shit pretty quickly. This place is a much classier, more secure operation than at Florence or Cinque Terre. So we needed to move the booking around to fit 6 people, and ended up in a 5-person chalet (it's a mobile home thing) with AIR-CON! Woo!

Like most other places, there are swarms of Germans here as part of church or youth groups.

On Thrusday, Nick Wollan arrived. Beautiful reunions and everything... you know. He had a friend coming to join us to help celebrate his birthday, which turned out to be Dhondy, a friend from London. All the girls went spastic when he got here, and I can see why. He's an awesome dude, who occasionally cooks us breakfast.

So, for Nick's 21st on Friday night we went on a pub crawl. Because girls are girls, we were running hella late, and we were too late. We got off the bus somwhere random and decided to walk towards the meeting point anyway, and as luck would have it we ran into the crawlers. So we joined the group late, paying half as much, but we missed out on the free beer and pizza, which is pretty much where the value comes from.
It's was an awesome night, though, and good times were had by all the the two bars (we had missed the first one) and the club. I would have picked up the Canadian teacher, but her friend was a major obstacle. There was an American dude hitting on the friend, but at some point he gave up and went and kissed Andria instead.
I would have played the piano that was there, too, butthe place was closing, and the bouncer didn't want to hear my pleas for just five minutes.
Damn.

I'm running out of time, here... the girls are gone to Paris, Dhondy, Nick, Adrian and I are here for two nights, the Nick and I are going to Germany. We're meeting up with the girls in Amsterdam in a couple of weeks or something.
This blog entry was boring. I promise to do something dangerous an illegal again soon.

Missing you all. Caio.

Sorry, folks

Argh! I just took half an hour to write out a big update, and fucking IE crashed before I posted it.

Ok, here goes again. The things I do for you guys. This one will be shorter, and may sound a little frustrated.

Well... when you last heard from me I had just arrived in Cinque Terre. Well, I had a good time at the campsite, and connected with two Canadian dudes. It was kind of a family orientened campsite, though, and the bar closed at 12 sharp. Very annoying. I didn't actually leave the campsite very much, because I suffered a minor injury that left me unable to walk far (a requisite ability to see the towns) on the first day, and on the second day I washed my clothes instead. Adrian (Kalan's boy) met up with us that night. Grouse bloke.

I left the group early the next morning to go to Verona and visit Meghan. Had a great time in the beautiful town. Saw Guiliette's balcony, but didn't feel the statue of her's breast for good luck. Saw an awesome weapons shop, too, and bought a big shiny knife.

I came back to Genova the next day to meet up with the girls + boy to board our cruise ship.
www.easycruise.com
When we got on, they handed us out doorkey that was also our charge card... that is, you don't pay cash, you put it on the card and settle it at the end. Dangerous. The fact that all prices were in pounds didn't make it any better. I'd rather not say what my final balance was.
We went to 1)Porto Fino, 2)San Remo, 3)Nice, 4)Cannes, 5)San Tropez and 6)Monaco

1) Very expensive. Saw a yacht called One More Toy. How deliciously obnoxious. We went to the beach, and I got smashed on a litre of wine with Adrian.

2) Beach. Lame. The beach sucks.

3) Nice. Climbed a big hill for a great veiw of the town. There was water feature carved into the top of the hill, that had little waterfalls, and tiny stream ran down the paths to the bottom. Then we went to the modern art gallery, a nice change from the beach. The first floor was devoted to a total hack called Raynaud. I don't know art, but I know that's not it. I'm sure it was just to make the next 4 floors look better by comparison. Then we went to the beach >P

4) In the evening we caught an awesome 20 minute fireworks show; Portugal's entry in the competition part of the Cannes pyrotechnics festival. I enjoyed the music they chose for it, too... they used a Björk song :)

5) The holiday destination for the stars, and home to many expensive sports cars. We were there the same day that Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock got married. We decided not to go to the wedding, though, but go to the beach instead. This beach was okay, because finally there were the many beautiful topless women I'd been promised from the European beaches.
Getting back was a bit of a debacle. We waited at the bus stop, but it didn't come. Found out from a local that the bus doesn't stop there anymore. SO WHY IS THERE A SIGN AND A TIMETABLE!?!
So, we started the long walk back to town. I guy pulled over in front of us and offered a lift. He could only fit four, so the girls got in Age and I kept walking and stuck our thumbs out. We watched the Lambourginis and Ferraris and Mercedes pass us for ages, before a Porche finally pulled over. I happened to have that cool knife I got in Verona on me, so I stuck it in the drivers back and kicked him out. I liked that knife, but I figured it was a good trade for the car. I forgot there was no way I could get the car on the boat with me. D'oh!
Oh well, we found the girls, dumped the car and got back on the boat in time for the drinking games. Drinking games with a predominately Welsh and Irish crowd is not always a recipe for great times, and a massive Welsh dude nearly picked a fight with me, but eventually fell over and broke his own nose on the deck instead. All in all, a good night.

6) I didn't leave the boat all day. Drinking games are the devil.


So, now we're in Genova, waiting for our midnight train to Rome, where we're meeting up with Nick Wollan. Yes, that's right, you suckers back home, I GET TO SEE HIM SOON. ner ner.

Kalan pondering the deeper meaning of Raynaud's master peice Cans of Soy Sauce Stacked in Front of a Chinese Flag